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Sourdough in baguettes

February 9, 2010 - 3:23pm

patishaffer

Sourdough in baguettes

I would like to make the baguettes with poolish from Hammelman's Bread book. I want to incorporate sourdough into this by using starter in the poolish but don't know how much to put in. Then when mixing the final dough and it calls for yeast, would I decrease it? I have made the sourdough and added a little yeast to quicken up the process as noted in one of th BBA breads. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks

If you are starting with a formula for baguettes made with poolish, it couldn't be easier. A poolish is a 100% hydration pre-ferment. That is, it contains equal weights of flour and water, plus a small amount of yeast.

To convert this formula to sourdough, mix your water and flour using the same quantities you would for the poolish, and, rather than adding the yeast, mix in some active sourdough starter, say 1/4 the weight of the flour you're using. Let this ripen until it's all bubbly and then mix it (minus the weight of starter you used to feed the pre-ferment) with the rest of the baguette ingredients, according to the formula.

Now, the truth is, you can still spike the dough with some yeast. It would speed up the dough fermentation and proofing but probably at the cost of some flavor from a longer fermentation. If you do add yeast, I'd add no more than 1/4 tsp of instant yeast per 500 gms of flour.

Hope this helps.

Errrr ... One concern: If you made your "sourdough" by mixing flour and water and yeast, it's not truly sourdough. If you want to use sourdough, you have to grow one or buy one or mooch one.

Thank you. I do have a sourdough that I have had for about a year. I had been making a multi grain levain with it in the summer for people and have kept it going by making english muffins and trying sourdough breads. I love your Italian Sourdough! The reason I wanted to put SD into baguettes is to see if they will keep longer (plus the flavor). Several people have told me that the complaints they have against one bakery is that their baguettes are like a rock the next day. So I wanted to see what the difference in shelf life would be for one. Then a friend of mine just opened a soup restaurant and she was purchaseing her baguettes from the local grocery store and now her supplier. I did try a baguette with some SD in it, gave it to her and she loved and wants me to make 4 dozen a day. That is why I would like to put some yeast in there. I don't have the time for long fermentations. Since she has asked me to make the baguettes it has not stopped snowing so I have time to play with this. I have not yet made a successful true sourdough. I work 2 jobs and the time just doesn't allow it. But with a touch of yeast they have been beautiful.

I do a 25 min. autolyse before adding the salt & hand knead for 6 min. Bulk ferment 3 hrs. w/ 1 fold. Your final proof will be closer to three hours, or you can retard the loaves overnight-I've got 4 sitting in my fridge waiting for me!

Hi logdrum. If you retard those baguettes overnight, do you bake them straight from the fridge or bring them back to room temperature? I would love to try them this Friday. Greetings from snowy England

from the fridge when I start pre-heating my oven, which takes about an hour to reach 475F. When I slash them, they are still plenty cool, but give excellent oven spring. As to actual bake time, I go 2 min. @ 475F the drop the oven back to about 460F for 10-12 min. Rotate 180 degrees & finish off 450F for 10-12 more min. This is on parchment on a fibrament stone.

I've made hybrid "baguettes" - I do a 100% hydration pre ferment of 15% of the flour, with 25% of the total weight of the pre ferment being a 100% hydration starter.

Which is very different from Mr Hamelman's formula, but has been the most successful for me.

I generally make hybrid baguettes at 65% hydration and I add no more than .5% of yeast (based on the total weight of flour.) They generally behave like yeast raised baguettes.

But the keeping quality is not there. It isn't really there in my pure levain baguettes either. They last maybe 36 hours before I consider them inedible and the same goes for the hybrid baguettes. Your opinion may differ. It is the nature of this bread form that it lives hard and dies young, I think.

But you say you gave your friend a baguette with sourdough in it and she loved it. Why not use the same formula you used for that bread?

...are awesome. i love the spicy component it adds. i would do, say, 10-20% starter with less than .25 idy/ady. one of my favourite baguettes in paris is made similarly (except it also has a touch of buckwheat in the final dough) at lalos' le quartier du pain.

I will often use a small amount of my sourdough starter rather than yeast in my poolish. It doesn't noticeably affect the flavor of the poolish (in terms of evident sourness), but I like doing it because it's another way to use my starter instead of commercial yeast. dnsynder's advice should serve you well in terms of proportions.

That said, in terms of sourdough's anti-staling properties, they're not going to do a whole lot (if anything) for baguettes. A baguette, because of its crust to crumb ratio and airy interior, is little more than a crouton waiting to happen. A very tasty crouton-waiting-to-happen, yes, but perhaps the most fleeting bread you can bake.

They are really great fresh a little while after they come out of the oven, but they become croutons pretty quickly... However, I will say that a properly made baguette should degrade or age as follows:

without drying in the oven:

When it is fully dried in whole form, it should shatter with the slightest bit of pressure. A well made ciabatta should do the same.

If they are sliced and dried, upon picking up a slice, it should just break with no effort...

I've been making sourdough baguettes using the BBA Basic Sourdough recipe, and subbing in around 10% whole wheat and 5% rye. They turn out pretty good although I'm still working on a more open crumb. Wrapped in plastic wrap I'd say they're good for 2-3 days.

what I like to do is use my sourdough recipe and just spike it with commercial yeast. I feel that the bread still gets some of the benefits of the sour dough starter and has the quick rise from the commercial yeast. It gets the nice shiney red tinted crust, and had a much more complex flavor.

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